JESSICA
SAVITCHIt
could be called a dark Southern tale: right-wing extremists and left-wing
extremists in a gun battle in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 88 seconds, five are left dead. Tonight
on FRONTLINE, an inside story behind those 88 seconds in Greensboro.

Six
Klansmen and American Nazis went on trial for the Greensboro killings two years
ago. They were acquitted by an all-white jury. The jury was persuaded that they
had fired in self-defense at the Communist demonstrators who were also armed.
The Communists boycotted the trial and refused to testify. But our report
tonight is not about that trial.

Instead
we examine new evidence that suggests law enforcement agencies had good reason
to know a dangerous confrontation was imminent and perhaps did nothing to stop
it.

There
was a paid police informer inside the Klan. Two key points to note while
watching this program: one, the Greensboro police and federal law enforcement
agencies told FRONTLINE they cannot answer any direct questions about their
involvement. They're being sued by relatives of the dead demonstrators. And
two: this is about a bitter political confrontation. It contains scenes of
violence, strong language, racial slurs.

The
film's director is William Cran. The reporter for FRONTLINE is James Reston,
Jr., who has written extensively on civil rights and the South.

SONG

I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time, one more time!I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time!

NARRATOR
This is
Morningside Homes in Greensboro, North Carolina, an almost entirely black
working class neighborhood, where many residents labor in the textile mills
nearby.

SONG

I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time!

NARRATOR
I came
here to the spot where five Communists, who were trying to organize textile
workers, were gunned down in an attack by the Ku Klux Klan. I came three years
later because haunting questions about police negligence remain unanswered. At
almost the same time on a bright Saturday morning shortly after 11:00 A.M.,
demonstrators convened in Morningside.

SONG
SUNG BY DEMONSTRATORS

Smash the Ku Klux Klan,We shall not be moved...

NARRATOR
Many were
members of the Communist Workers Party. And they planned to stage a "Death
to the Klan" march through the streets of the city.

SONG
SUNG BY DEMONSTRATORS

We shall not be moved!We'll fightFor truth and justice...

NARRATOR
They
dared the Klan to attend. Some expected violence. Some wore hard hats and
others concealed weapons.

SONG
SUNG BY DEMONSTRATORS

We shall not be moved!

NARRATOR
But everyone
was surprised when suddenly a man in a yellow pick-up truck
shouted
out, "You asked for the Klan! Now you've got 'em!"

NARRATOR
As
Klansmen up the street fired the first two shots, there was a puff of smoke.
By now, the demonstrators are firing back. But no Klansmen were
shot. Nonchalantly, the intruders returned their shotguns and their
semi-automatic rifle to the blue Ford Fairlane. The police will not arrive for
another two minutes.

DEMONSTRATORSGod!
My God!Where
in the heck are the damn cops?We
don't want the cops! We want doctors! They had it planned!Help
us! Help us!Come
here!Get an
ambulance! Get 'em right here!Goddamn
bourgeoisie did this!The
cops did this!The
Klan and the state got together and planned this.That's
why there were no cops here, do you hear me?The
state protects the Klan and this makes it clear.They
came through and they opened fire. They opened fire on us!And we
fired back to protect ourselves.

NARRATOR
Later,
the police professed confusion over the convening point and the starting time
for the march. But as some demonstrators told four television crews who were
there:

DEMONSTRATORThe
Klan, or whoever it was jumped out and just started shootin' in the direction
of the thickest concentration of people. They seemed to be aiming at particular
people. There were several police in the area who did nothing until after these
murderers left. Police came in and immediately started arresting people who
were trying to help those who had fallen. Nelson Johnson, you know, was taken
into custody, kicked in the head by the police. He was bleeding from the arm as
he was trying to help people. The police did this, directly or indirectly. They
set it up.

NARRATOR
By
nightfall most of the Klan and Nazis had been apprehended. The Communists'
assertion of police complicity seemed predictable and was generally ignored.

But one
man driving home knew more about the role of the Greensboro police.

ON
TELEVISIONFollowing
"World News Tonight" ... Death to the Klan!"

NARRATOR
His name
was Edward Dawson. He had been the man who shouted from the yellow pick-up
truck, "You asked for the Klan! Now you've got 'em!"

CHANTING

Death to the Klan!

NARRATOR
Edward
Dawson was a paid police informant. And he had been in the vehicle that led the
Klan to Morningside. Late that night, Dawson tape-recorded his story.

EDWARD
DAWSON ON TAPEThe people
were chanting: "Death to the Klan! Death to the Klan!"

NARRATOR
He would
reconstruct his story fully for the first time on television.

EDWARD
DAWSON ON TAPEA shot
rang out and people to my left started to run.

NARRATOR
In the
trial where four Klansmen and two Nazis were acquitted, Dawson was never called
as a witness.

EDWARD
DAWSON ON TAPEBy
this time a lot of shots were ringin' out. Buck came back and got in the truck
and told me that a couple of people were killed. He did not know whether they
were Klansmen.

NARRATOR
While
much of his story remains ambiguous, his case raises disturbing questions about
how one police department used an informant inside the Ku Klux Klan.

KU
KLUX KLAN RALLY Speaker:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan rally tonight! We're gonna start out tonight with a band playing
"Dixie on My Mind." So let it go.

NARRATOR
A
reformed alcoholic and gambler, he was a loner. He joined the Klan out of
curiosity -- he says, for the fellowship. His FBI file labels him "an
extremist informant." Twice he was convicted of cross-burnings and violent
night rides. He found his double role in meetings like this comfortable and
exciting. But after the trial, when Dawson was exposed as an informant, his old
Klan klavern, headed by Virgil Griffin, led the November 3 events at his door.

KU
KLUX KLAN RALLYSpeaker:
I'd like to take this time to introduce a man who has done a very fine job for
the invisible empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. None other than the Grand
Dragon, Mr. Virgil Griffin.

Griffin:
We got a little scum down in Greensboro by the name of Eddy Dawson! People want
to know, do you want him killed? No, I don't want him killed! I want the
children to look at the scum and let him know he's a Judas, let him know he
sold his white race out. I want him to go hearty, nobody havin' nothin' to do
with him. Eddy Dawson sold out his white race of people and his country to the
FBI and the police. And then he sold them out to the Communist Party. He led
them into a trap, he led the Klan into a trap, and now he has nowhere to go.

NARRATOR
Soon the
Communists joined the Klan in painting Dawson as the mastermind behind the killings.
All over Greensboro posters charged Dawson, along with a federal agent inside
the Nazi party, with murder. But was Dawson the mastermind or the scapegoat?

His
career as an informant began 10 years before the Greensboro killings. Ed
Dawson had one thing the FBI dearly wanted: access to the inner circle of the
Klan. And they knew how to get a handle on Dawson. His trouble with the law
made him ripe for recruitment.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON JR./EDWARD DAWSON Dawson:
We were charged with terrorizing the citizens of Alamance County, assault with
a deadly weapon with intent to kill and murder, and two charges of breaking and
entering, and two charges of destroying property.

Reston:
You served nine months.

Dawson:
This is correct, yes.

Reston:
That's not the first time you were ever in jail, was it?

Dawson:
In the state of North Carolina?

Reston:
No, I said in jail, period.

Dawson:
In the army, I was in jail, yes.

Reston:
Yeah, what was that about?

Dawson:
AWOL.

Reston:
In wartime?

Dawson:
In World War II, yes. I went in in 1941, in the army.

Reston:
Well, that really was desertion, wasn't it?

Dawson:
At that time they charged me with the 58th Article of War which was desertion,
yes. I could have been executed.

Reston:
And you were convicted and sent on to jail for that.

Dawson:
I was sent to prison, yes.

Reston:
Then moving on, two years later after you got out of jail, there was another
incident in eastern North Carolina, in Swan Quarter.

Dawson:
This is correct, yes.

Reston:
And did that lead to a conviction?

Dawson:
Yes, it did. We got five years, one year suspended for five and a $1,000 fine.
And that's what helped irritate me something furious. They refused to pay the
fine. We had to pay that out of our pocket.

Reston:
You were furious at the United Klan...

Dawson:
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Without a question of a doubt. One word led to
another and I called them all a bunch of thieves.

Reston:
OK, shortly thereafter you were approached by the FBI.

Dawson:
This is correct, yes. Maybe two months later.

Reston:
And your bitterness in relation to the United Klans of America was part of the
pitch they made to you.

Dawson:
Oh, I imagine they knew it. They had an informant, evidently at that meeting
and told them how hot I was. And they figured I was ripe, the FBI.

Reston:
Ripe for what?

Dawson:
To become an informant for them. And the agent talked to me and talked to me
and I turned him down. I turned him down for about six weeks before I would
even consider listening to him. And then I agreed I would work for them for one
year, give them the information that they wanted, providing that they could get
me off probation.

Reston:
He appealed to your bitterness against the United Klans. Did he also threaten
you to send you up the river?

Dawson:
Definitely not. Not at that time, no.

Reston:
So there was no carrot and stick?

Dawson:
There was a little statement made. He had a stack of papers on his desk there,
this special agent from Greensboro, here. And he went through these papers.
When I refused to cooperate with him, more or less, and he said, maybe if we go
through these papers real fine, maybe we can find something and send your ass
up the river. So I says, if that's the way it has to be, that's the way it has
to be.

Reston:
In the period from 1969 to 1977 you served as an informant to the FBI?

Dawson:
This is correct, yes.

Reston:
How much did they pay you?

Dawson:
They paid you $25 for a regular meeting. They paid you $50 for a state meeting.
For travel, 10 cents a mile.

Reston:
And were you paid any bonuses for any special information that you would bring
in?

Dawson:
They would have paid bonuses, yes, I understand. I never had the privilege.

DAWSON
IN COFFEE SHOP TALKING TO FRIENDDawson:
If you was a police informant on that particular day of November 3,1981,
would you have handled it the way I handled it?

NARRATOR
At late
night coffee shops, Dawson sometimes meets fellow informants. This is Reverend
George Dorsett, who for many years was an inflammatory figure as a Klan leader.

DAWSON
IN COFFEE SHOP (Continued)Dawson:
Well, the press did cover this. They were down there.

NARRATOR
In 1975,
a Senate investigation exposed Dorsett as a highly paid FBI informant. Dorsett
was photographed on the day when he was tried as a Klan traitor and banished.
Grand Dragon Virgil Griffin appointed as Dorsett's prosecutor, then FBI
informant Edward Dawson.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON JR./EDWARD DAWSON

Reston:
Ed, during the eight years that you informed for the FBI, did the FBI give you
guidelines in relation to any violent acts that the Klan might take and your
participation in them?

Dawson:
Well, I can't actually say ... they never told you what to do, really. What not
to do. They told you what they expect of you, to report any violence that you
heard, immediately. And they understood that there'd be a time that you'd get
into a situation where you cannot report to them of the violence that is
happening, and you have to call them immediately if anything is about to
happen.

Reston:
But if you yourself, as a paid informant, engaged in acts of violence, they
never, they never said that was something that you may not do?

Dawson:
That was never discussed. No, that was never discussed. Absolutely not.

NARRATOR
I went to
see former Senator Robert Morgan at his house on the banks of the
Cape Fear River.

In his
1975 Senate investigation, Morgan had discovered widespread use of police
provocateurs throughout America to disrupt activist groups. The program was
know as COINTELPRO.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ROBERT MORGAN

Morgan:
Provocateuring is a historical problem. Provocateuring is as old as the Bureau
itself. As a matter of fact, it got so bad in the early '20s that Attorney
General Harlan Stone dissolved the Bureau as it was then and reorganized it and
charged it with the purpose of responsibility of enforcing the laws. He said
that if any police agency ever got away from that, it'd become a threat to
society and to our liberties.

Reston:
And then when you were in the Senate, you were in the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, you studied this problem.

Morgan:
Yes, and we found, as a matter of fact, that provocateuring had always remained
a part of the Bureau's activities.

And as
a matter of fact, down here in North Carolina, the Bureau organized 41 chapters
of the Ku Klux Klan. And, of course, it was done for the purpose of promoting
factionalism and dividing the so-called original Klan. In one Klan klavern in
Alamance County, there were only eight members, and seven of them were paid
informants of the FBI.

NARRATOR
As a
result of Senator Morgan's probe, Ed Dawson, along with many other extremist
informants was terminated by the FBI.

He
continued his daylight career as contractor and housepainter, but he remained
friendly with police officers and FBI agents. Many of his contracting jobs were
for them. So it was only natural in 1979, when Greensboro police needed a plant
inside the Klan, they would turn to Eddy Dawson.

The
police were concerned because the Ku Klux Klan was being taunted by radicals
working inside the textile mills. North Carolina's textile industry: it
comprises one-third of all manufacturing jobs in a state which historically
frowns on unions. In the summer of 1979 an old pattern reasserted itself. Like
the strikes of the 1930s, once again highly motivated organizers were active in
the mills ... this time in Greensboro. The modern counterparts were medical
doctors and communists. Brown lung -- the disease caused by cotton dust -- was the
issue around which victims of November 3 like Jim Waller and Dr. Mike Nathan
organized.

PAUL
BERMAZOHN WITH PATIENT AT CLINICAnd
the graph can tell us something about the state of your lungs. We'll have some
idea about whether or not you might have brown lung. So Marti will...

NARRATOR
Nathan's
widow, Marti, herself a doctor, and Dr. Paul Bermazohn, who survived a bullet
in his brain on November 3, showed me how the brown lung clinics worked.

MARTI
NATHAN
Okay,
ready, take a big breath. Now blow into the machine.

SONG:

Last time I went near my job,I thought my lungs were broken.Chest bound 'round like iron bands,I couldn't breathe for chokin',I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time.I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time,One more time.I'm gonna go to work on Monday,One more time.

NARRATOR
The more
clinics they held, the more radical they became.

MARTI
NATHAN
So much
of what you see, you know, brown lung, is the result of the economic situation.
It's the result of their work and their poverty and one thing impresses you is
the sickness caused by capitalism.

PAUL
BERMAZOHN
I think
that medicine and politics really start from the same place. If you're
concerned about people, it will lead you often into fields like
medicine ... trying to help people. As Marti was saying, you see that there are
systematic problems or diseases of oppression. Brown lung is really not a
disease caused by cotton dust. It's a disease caused by an economic system that
puts a priority on profit over people.

NARRATOR
Four who
died in Greensboro were active around the mills. They took jobs in the mills
and confronted management. They organized campaigns for better working
conditions and promoted strikes. By now, they had moved to the extreme left and
joined a small faction called the Communist Workers Party.

Among the
victims were Bill Sampson, once a Harvard divinity student; Sandy Smith, a
Bennett College activist; Caesar Cauce, a hospital worker; and Dr. Jim Waller,
who left medicine altogether to organize. His widow, Signe:

SIGNE
WALLER
Well, Jim
and Bill and Sandy and Caesar and Mike were educating workers and fighting
alongside with workers. And Jim was elected first, shop steward, then vice
president and then president of his union local. And he would accompany men
down to the boss's office and fight grievances and he won most of them. And
they had this equipment replaced that people were getting injured on. And they
had the practice of flipping cloth chains that men were getting hernias from
doing that. They would take up the fights that were affecting people's welfare,
people's safety on the job.

NARRATOR
Actually,
success was mixed. After a strike, Waller was fired. Their textile union was
concerned about Communist infiltration, and suspended his Greensboro locals.

In the
summer of 1979, the Communist Workers Party was in search of a new tactic. An
opportune target was provided by the Ku Klux Klan in China Grove, a small mill
town 50 miles southwest of Greensboro. Klansmen had scheduled a screening of
D.W. Griffith's silent classic "The Clansman", better known as
"Birth of a Nation." By modern standards the film is luridly racist
and bound to cause trouble in a southern town with many black citizens.

Before
long, the Klan got the reaction it no doubt expected. The demonstrators were
led by the Communist Workers Party.

The
encounter had the feel of an old-fashioned fight behind the woodpile. China
Grove became the rehearsal for the Greensboro clash. But state law enforcement
agencies took no heed of the warning.

SHOUTS
BY DEMONSTRATORS We
don't want any trouble. We
just want the Klan to go home. Go
home! We
will not tolerate it. If we
have to die here, we'll die here. But
there will not be any Klan Today,
tomorrow, never! Death
to the Klan.

KLANSMANBut I
will have revenge for this. Oh, there'll be revenge.

NARRATOR
To the
elated Communists a new strategy had been validated -- one that could unite black
and white workers. They decided to repeat the tactic in Greensboro. They put
out a poster announcing a "Death to the Klan" march. The man who
designed the poster, Nelson Johnson:

NELSON
JOHNSON
I think
the Klan, historically, are cowards. And I think that's an accurate statement
and people need to understand that. They project an image of bravado, and
that's how they attract a lot of young, white youth. But that's really not
their history.

When you
call a Southerner scum and coward, and when they are predisposed to violence anyway,
as the Klan clearly is, does that not start to set up a certain chemistry?

NARRATOR
Perhaps.
As soon as the Communist posters began to appear around town, police decided
they needed access to the planning council of the Klan. So they recruited Ed
Dawson.

Upon his
own initiative, Dawson designed a poster himself.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON JR./EDWARD DAWSON

Reston:
And this is the "Death to the Klan" poster which was posted all over
Greensboro before November 3.

Dawson:
This is right, yes.

Reston:
I gather you had your own posters.

Dawson:
Yes. There are some right here. There it is, yeah.

Reston:
I have this poster here which was placed on top of the "Death to the
Klan" Communist posters: "Notice to traitors, Communists, race mixers
and Black rioters: Traitors beware! Even now the cross hairs are on the backs
of your necks. It's time for old-time justice -- American justice." And
the vision of a lynching.

Dawson:
There's a vision, yes, of a lynching.

NARRATOR
Dawson
took the Communist poster to a Klan meeting two weeks before the Greensboro
march.

SONG

"Oh,
we don't want niggers in our schools.We're
not for integration.Keep
those niggers in their place.We'll
have a better nation.Our
Southmen got along just fine till those integratorsCame
down here stirring up the mess with outside agitators."

NARRATOR
Grand
Dragon Virgil Griffin and his men went to a Lincolnton meeting much like this
one to decide what to do about the Communist declaration of war.

ANNOUNCER
AT KLAN MEETING: Let's have a big hand for Virgil Griffin.

Griffin:
Thank you, thank you. We can take our country back from the Communist Party;
we'll take it back from the niggers. It's time for us to band together. If we
have to get in the streets and find blood up to our knees, by God, it's time to
get ready, fight! Give them what they want. Fight for your country.

Witness:
He brought one of those posters with him and it was passed out, around so they
could see it. And he got the crowd real emotional. And he said that he knew
what we had to face and he said, "I'm telling you guys right now, it's
going to be a fight." He said he felt it was our patriotic duty --
everybody should go.

Reston:
He said, time and time again in the meeting ... Dawson said, "Bring
guns?"

Witness:
Shotguns, rifles ... pistols if you keep them unconcealed. I mean, you know, you
can't conceal a gun nowhere in North Carolina on you.

Reston:
And did he say why bring those guns?

Witness:
No ... just said might, perhaps we may need them.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Dawson:
The question was asked, "Is it alright to bring guns?" And my answer
to that was: "If you bring a gun, there will be wall-to-wall police there.
A gun -- if it's hidden, a bulge is seen. You will be arrested and you better
have the bond money in your back pocket. I'm not your father. I cannot tell you
to bring guns or not to bring guns. "

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ WITNESS AT MEETING

Witness.
That was basically the main thing that Eddy Dawson said ... was implied and kept
pounding on the fact that we should take shotguns and long guns; nothing else.

NARRATOR
The Klan
was not the only group planning to confront Communists in Greensboro. Nazis had
met with Klansmen to discuss forming a "United Racist Front."
As Nazis
prepared to go to Greensboro, they, too, were concerned about informants in
their midst.

NAZI
PARTY MEMBER
I would
say that the government has, for a long time -- I would say since the creation
of the FBI back in, I think, '29, '28 -- I believe that the government has kept
close watch on any group that they perceive as extremists; in other words,
anybody that is not a Republican or a Democrat. I think the right-wing groups
in this country today have a very large number of informers and agents in
leadership roles in these organizations.

NARRATOR
Nazi
suspicions were justified. A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent was
present at this meeting two days before the Greensboro killings.

This is agent
Bernard Butkovitch. And although he did not go to Greensboro, he was there when
Nazis brandished weapons and made threats. And he was still there when
representatives of Virgil Griffin's clan arrived to coordinate activities. The
ATF declined to discuss the role of their agent in the events leading to
Greensboro. Nor would it discuss charges he trained Nazis in weapons and
explosives.

That same
afternoon on the steps of the Greensboro police station, the CWP held its own
press conference. Reporters and one police informant listened to Nelson Johnson
denounce the police.

NELSON
JOHNSON AT PRESS CONFERENCE The
police hate us. We know it. They're not neutral. They're out to do everything
they can to disrupt us.

NARRATOR
Posing as
a reporter was Ed Dawson.

CWP
PRESS CONFERENCE (Continued)

Johnson:
And we're here to say that we're going ahead with the march, permit or no
permit. And I want to add that we just picked up the permit a few minutes ago
after running around the building two or three times this morning. The people
of Greensboro are intent on smashing and driving out the scum Ku Klux Klan and
their secret supporters. The march will be more powerful than ever. We fully
expect the police to continue their slimy tactics. They will do anything to
disrupt this march and disguise themselves. They might harass us or send
provocateurs into our ranks to disrupt the march.

Reporter:
What do you think the march is going to accomplish?

Johnson:
What we want to do is say the Klan is nothing but a bunch of cowards. They're
not gonna come here. If they come here, it'll be because the police aided them
in coming here and attacking us.

NARRATOR
Informant
Dawson had a question of his own.

PRESS
CONFERENCE (Continued)

Dawson:
Do they have Klansmen in Greensboro here?

People's
responses: Yeah, we got Klansmen. Everywhere. In the building right there.

NARRATOR
Dawson
struck up a conversation with Nelson Johnson and Paul Bermazohn, both of whom
would be wounded in the Klan attack two days later. Minutes after these
pictures were taken, Dawson went into the police station and got his own copy
of the parade permit. Clearly printed on its face was the time: 11:00 A.M., and
the starting point at Morningside Homes.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Reston:
Did the FBI ever tell you shortly before November 3 not to attend the November
3 caravan?

Dawson:
I had called an agent in the FBI and he knew, this agent, that I was relaying
messages from the Klan to the police department. When I called him, he said to
me, "Relay your information, but stay away from the march."

Reston:
Why did you not stay away when the FBI said you should?

Dawson:
That is a very good question. If I knew then what I know now, I'd be able to
answer your question much better. But why I went was they expected me there to
go over to Morningside and to lead them over there, I might as well say.

NARRATOR
In the
hours that followed, Dawson's leadership role was critical. The night before he
drove Klansmen over the parade route so they would be familiar with the
streets. Because virtually all the Klansmen and Nazis were not from Greensboro,
Dawson arranged a rendezvous at the home of the one Klansman who has remained
his friend: Brent Fletcher.

An
alcoholic disabled Vietnam veteran, Fletcher was the second Klansman to open
fire the next morning.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR., EDDY DAWSON, BRENT FLETCHER

Reston:
Ed, that morning, when you were back here with Brent and Jerry Paul Smith, were
you acting as a Klansman or as a police informant?

Dawson:
I was acting as a police informant. I was here to observe what was being said,
if there was any violent talk, and to try to make contact if there was at that
time.

Reston:
Do you always keep that pistol by your side?

Fletcher:
24 hours a day.

Reston:
Can I see it?

Fletcher:
Well, it's a .9 mm. It's a good gun. I keep it for self-protection. It's a good
gun.

NARRATOR
On the
morning of the shooting, Dawson made the first of two phone calls to his police
contact, Detective Jerry Cooper, nicknamed "Rooster." The police were
already taking these photographs across from Brent Fletcher's house. Rooster's
assignment that day was to shadow the Klan caravan. Ed Dawson was one of the
first arrivals. After staying some minutes, Dawson managed to slip away and
make his second call to Rooster.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Reston:
What did you say to Rooster at 7:30?

Dawson:
That they had a couple of guns.

Reston:
You reported to Cooper on the presence of guns?

Dawson:
Oh, definitely.

Reston:
And what did you say in that second conversation?

Dawson:
That there was at that time about 13, 14, or 15 people at Brent's house.

Reston:
By that time, you'd seen more weapons?

Dawson:
Yes, there was more weapons, yes. Shotguns, handguns.

NARRATOR
The
police version of events is contained in a report. A careful document, it finds
no fault with police conduct and specifically portrays Dawson as a stranger to
the department. Some police actions are detailed, however. At 10:00 A.M.
Rooster briefed police commanders.

It's
clear they were expecting trouble. Rooster related intelligence including the
presence of guns. Rooster's intelligence, said the report, was considered
reliable and up-to-date. But Dawson was not mentioned as the source.

Meanwhile,
the question of leadership was being raised back at Brent Fletcher's.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Reston:
Who said, "Who's in charge?"

Dawson:
Oh, God knows. Somebody just hollered out.

Reston:
And what was the reply to that?

Dawson:
I looked at Virgil, Virgil looked at me and Virgil said, "I guess he is.
He knows the city better than we do." And Buck made a remark to me, that
"you have a copy of the permit." The streets are all on the back of
that. And I did have it with me and went out and brought it in the house.

NARRATOR
Now the
police made a fatal error. With Klan ranks swelling, with the start of the
march only a half an hour away, the two tactical squads assigned to the march
were given permission to take their lunch break.

NARRATOR
In the
rush to leave Fletcher's, the Klan car had been left behind. It was the blue
Ford Fairlane, and most of the guns used in the killing were in the trunk of
that car.

Rooster's
photographs show the caravan stopped on the interstate ramp waiting for the
stray Fairlane. The time was 11:06. Another police photograph shows Dawson
walking to the rear of the motorcade as the Fairlane pulls in.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Reston:
Did you know that the guns were in the Fairlane?

Dawson:
I knew absolutely nothing about the guns in the Fairlane.

Reston:
Did you know that you were being photographed by your police case officer?

Dawson:
No, I did not. No.

Reston:
And you've never seen these photographs before?

Dawson:
No, I have not.

Reston:
Were you not there in the back of the caravan?

Dawson:
I was at the back, but cars coming down the ramp constantly. I just didn't pay
attention.

Reston:
When the Fairlane arrived, did you direct where the Fairlane should go in the
caravan?

Dawson:
Absolutely not. I do not remember it. I did not look for it. I did not see it.

NARRATOR
As the
motorcade pulled out, Rooster communicated constantly with headquarters. Eight
minutes before the first shots, police radio crackled with Rooster's alarm.

Reston:
OK, we're turning into Everett Street now. All right. Did it surprise you that
there were so many people here?

Dawson:
Yes, it sure did. The television and newspaper reporters was to our left.

Reston:
Where were the police then?

Dawson:
There wasn't a police or a cop or an unmarked car in sight.

Reston:
And did you recognize anybody on the right there?

Dawson:
Just about as we approached this spot here, I recognized Paul Bermazohn. I just
looked at him. He looked at me. Our eyes caught. And I said, "You
Communist son of a bitch. You asked for the Klan, and here we are."

Reston:
And then you stopped.

Dawson:
And the reason we stopped -- I was looking back and Buck was looking in his
mirror and we stopped. Everybody stopped.

Reston:
So it had been very difficult for him to get around, anyway?

Dawson:
Oh, yes. Sure.

Reston:
Then you got back in and got out here as quickly as you could?

Dawson:
Buck came running and said, "Let's get the hell out of here."

NARRATOR
Rooster
was behind the caravan when the first shots rang out. He stayed a block away
for the next 88 seconds. At 11:23 and 47 seconds, he radioed the words,
"heavy gunfire." But the lieutenant in charge was still confused
about the location of the trouble.

HYPNOTIST
IN COURTROOMI want
you to look at me. Raise your eyes lightly now. And you can tighten your eyes.
As you tighten your eyes, just arch your eyebrows back.

NARRATOR
During
the trial, the court authorized the defense to interview, under hypnosis, a
local television reporter named Laura Blumenthal. Hypnosis revived her
subconscious feeling that the Communists had brought this upon themselves and
this became powerful court testimony for the Klan.

COURTROOM
SCENE: HYPNOTIST WITH LAURA BLUMENTHAL

Hypnotist:
Very deeply ... Laura I want you to go back to this date, November 3.

Blumenthal:
I know what's comin'. I know what's comin'! People start fighting with the
sticks that they had ... those posters on. And shots ... and I don't know where
they're comin' from. I heard one hit Bloom's car window because I heard it
shatter. And I was really scared.

Shots,
more shots! Shots are coming from both sides now. I just ... wanted them ... to
stop ... shooting! Squealing tires ... I thought, we can get out now. I can get out
from under the car. So I got out. Brushed myself off and went around in front
of the car. Three people were there, three. One guy on the left -- put my hand
on his shoulder and said, "Are you OK?" He turned around and looked
at me and he'd been shot. He had blood on his head. I'd never seen anybody get
shot. And the guy, he had a really ... big piece ... of his head ... gone. And that
blood, a huge pool of blood, and his broken glasses.

And
this black woman came over. And she said to me, "Put your hand over the
hole in his head. And I said, "You kiss my ass! You started this shit. You
put your hand over the hole in his head!"

The
guy over against the building, his wife had been looking for him. I couldn't
believe it. She went over, put his head in her arms and started yelling about
the Klan. "You Klan! This is my husband! Those motherfucking Klan came in
here." And her husband's layin' there dying while those paramedics worked
on him and she's yelling about the Klan. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't
believe it. Across the street it was the same thing. We got her on tape.
"Long live the Communist Workers' Party. And long live the working class!
And in spite of you goddamn cops, revolution!" She was hollerin' at the
police, hollerin' at 'em. I thought these people were fuckin' crazy. They're
crazy.

NARRATOR
In the
view of Signe Waller, Floris Cauce, and Dale Sampson, their husbands were the
victims of an organized conspiracy.

INTERVIEW
WITH WIVES OF VICTIMS

Signe
Waller: When I stood over Jim's body and said, "Long live the Communist
Workers' Party" and "Long live the working class," then why I
said that was that that moment capsulized for me everything that Jim had lived
his life for and had laid down his life for.

Dale
Sampson: The moment Jess stopped ... you're kind of in between understanding
what's happening, right in front of you, and at the same time, you're aware of
everything that's going on. I was aware of Signe across with Jim. But I was
very aware that I knew something was terribly wrong besides the fact that my
husband was dying in my arms. That I knew that there's no way that this
happened by itself. And when Signe stood up across the street from me and said,
"Long live the Communist Workers' Party," and "We'll fight for
socialist revolution and win despite you cops," it forced me, at least at
some level, to become conscious. And I realized that it was a set-up. You know,
that we had been set up like a shooting gallery.

Reston:
What did you say to that policeman that morning?

Floris
Cauce: I was telling him that he and his buddies were responsible for the
murders that just happened ... that the Greensboro Police Department was
responsible for everything that was going on there ... that all the dead bodies
lying on the ground, all the blood on the streets, the fear and anger and
hatred that had been spread all over that community -- that he would believe me
and understand in a few years that they were responsible for that.

Dale
Sampson: I believe the government was involved in the murder of my husband. And
while I am dying inside, I am not going to let my husband die without that
truth being exposed. Edward Dawson and Bernard Butkovitch were acting as agents
in terms of planning out this assassination.

INTERVIEW:
JAMES RESTON, JR./ EDDY DAWSON

Reston:
There's been a case essentially made against you in all of this. Let me see if
I can capsulize it. As far as I can tell, there are eight points to it.

Dawson:
Alright.

Reston:
One, that you acted in a dubious fashion in the October 20 Lincolnton rally.
Many people say that you did advocate confrontation, that you advocated taking
guns. Secondly, that by being the Klan's pointman, if you will, in Greensboro,
that you gave the Klan information about coming in here that they would not
ordinarily have. Three, that you gave them a rendezvous point. Four, that you
willingly composed and distributed Klan inflammatory literature. Five, that you
willingly accepted a leadership role at Brent Fletcher's house. Six, that you
rushed people along at Fletcher's house when there was no apparent reason to
get there at the absolute opening of the march. You got into Everett Street --
even seeing no police there, you shouted out a provocative statement at Paul
Bermazohn. And lastly, that the car was stopped. When you stopped the car, you
blocked an escape for the whole caravan which led to the violence. Now that's
the case all in a capsule. What do you say about that?

Dawson:
Start over on the first one.

Reston:
We've gone through it all, point by point. I'm asking you about it as a total
case. Is that a fair case? Is there a case against Eddy Dawson?

Dawson:
I don't like to use the word "frame-up job." These are a bunch of
half-wits that got themselves into a jam and they're looking for a scapegoat
and they had been laying it on my shoulder for two and a half years. They're
not big enough to admit their part in it. I can't control this thing any more
than ... I'm not the city police.

Reston:
This is one more peril of being a police informant, isn't it? When you're
exposed, they want to discard you.

Dawson:
Discard you is right. That's for sure. When this happened, it happened on a
Saturday. I heard nothing from the police until Tuesday. They never called, was
never interested -- "Are you okay? Can we do anything for you?" -- or
anything. They just let you go down the drain like a rotten piece of meat.

NARRATOR
He was
now truly alone. To blame it all on him would exonerate all others. Once at his
house, he put on his old uniform for me -- the same uniform he designed for the
Klan security forces.

DAWSON
I wore
the uniform so I wouldn't have to wear the robe.

NARRATOR
True, the
episode might not have happened but for Dawson's provocateur behavior. But he
only became involved at the behest of the authorities. They launched him into
the darkness with no guidance. They ignored valuable information he did
provide.

Five
deeply committed people are dead. Their tombstone calls them martyrs, but they
were far from innocent victims.

For me,
the conclusion is inescapable: the police could have prevented the massacre.
They could have stopped the caravan and they could have been at Morningside.
Was their failure to do so accidental or deliberate?

At least
this can be said: no matter how undesirable a majority may view them, Americans
should be able to take to the streets without fear that police or their agents
will promote or tolerate violence against them.

UPDATE

JESSICA
SAVITCH

A
federal grand jury is expected to return new indictments in the Greensboro case
at any time. Eddy Dawson has been called to testify. Until that case and others
are resolved, no law enforcement agency alleged to be involved in Greensboro
can comment. Please be assured that when they can, FRONTLINE stands ready to
report it.

However,
Greensboro is only part of an ongoing nationwide debate on the need to use
informants versus the need to protect individual freedoms. The FBI guidelines
for informers put into effect after Watergate are now being called too restrictive.
FBI Director William Webster has asked for fewer restrictions.

On a
local level, many police departments, including Greensboro's, told FRONTLINE
they do have guidelines on use of informants. But at this time, no uniform
policies exist.

Historically,
the tougher the economic times become in this country, the more vulnerable we
become to the type of misdirected rage and frustration that begets violence. We
have charged our law enforcement agencies with the awesome responsibility of,
on the one hand, assuring our constitutional right -- to speak out, to bear
arms, and to assemble; while on the other hand, ensuring we may do so in
safety. That is a delicate problem. The larger question left by whatever you
choose to believe really led up to those 88 seconds in Greensboro is at what
point does an informer cease being part of the solution and instead, contribute
to the problem?